A while back dave and i were speaking about the SEO things we are doing as a business now, and mentioned that it would be funny (and also a bit of an inter-company challenge) to try and each get to the top of google for our names – dave and olly.
We haven’t mentioned it since, but i got thinking about it earlier, and tried to decide what would be the best (and easiest) method of getting my blog to the top of google if someone searched for olly. Anyone who knows anything about SEO knows that in a nutshell, its all about good content and inbound links (ok, lots of other stuff too but these are the only things i am going to take into consideration for this challenge)
I already have good UNIQUE content, so what else? I need links in to this site. But mannnn that would take ages and ages and i really cant be arsed to hand pick them, and i don’t want the cost involved in BUYING links.
Its basically a free link directory that allows anyone to sign up to it – but i am going to be slightly picky with who i allow access. Simply because i don’t want it to be a general free link directory, we already have one of them! I want it to be a useful, relevant, non spammy directory that will one day hold a bangin pagerank, and be beneficial for all that are on it.
How it helps me, is in order to add your link – you have to add MY link first. And i have got the recip link pointing to the main page, not the directory. I know one way linking is usually preferred, but we haven’t done too badly with our other directory, and thats only ever had recip links added.
So sign up now, and start promoting your site, and helping me get to the top of google!
NB this is for the term olly, not 0lly (with a zero) im already at the top if you spell it with a Zero 🙂
We’re always thinking of new ideas and ways to fill our time (hah, what time?) and we have recently been on another domain name purchasing spree which has lead to me sitting down and installing a few blogs so that we can launch a few new websites.
They are mainly motoring related, and they focus on things such as news, product reviews and online sales for different aspects of the modified and performance car market.
The first is our site that is aimed at beating the credit crunch and showing the pathway to cheap motoring. It will have info on petrol prices, cheap road tax and links to low tax bracket, cheap cars to buy! Plus many other ways to save money on motoring. The site is called Daily Runabout and has only just been started so bear with us while we start the content flowing.
The next site is aimed more at the buying of certain modified and performance car parts. Everything from alloy wheels to bodykits, even bonnet pins all displayed in a logical format that guarantees no more than 3 clicks to find the product you require. There will be news and updates posted on there too so be sure to check up regularly! Modified Parts Trader hopes to help you find cheap car parts and help you modify your car for less!
Our next site is one that is aimed more at the alloy wheel market. Its called Rims4u and was originally (around 2000-2002) an alloy wheel refurb website, but they must of gone bust or something. It is now the source for alloy wheel information. New releases, industry gossip and everything a good rim addict needs to fulfil their needs.
Nearly there, yes – i have been busy!
The next website is the final modified car related one. Its taking the online modified car part scene from a totally different angle. Its an auction powered site that is like a car boot sale but just for bits to mod your motor! Eventually we would like to take the idea to a location one day and actually have a car boot sale with just modified cars with old/spare parts that we all have (and we all have at least a shed full) and get some cash back for that old crap! Modified Car Boot Sale has landed! Bear with us while we finish it off though.
The final site for now is one we have been meaning to set up for a while. 123-reg have been our domain registrar for a very long time. We have had a lot of problems with them over the years and most of these problems have been documented on blogs here there and everywhere. It suddenly dawned on me that these blog posts could warrant there own site, so we made one! 123-reg blog! If you have a 123-reg horror story then please head on over, contact us through the site and we’ll give you access so you can add stuff to your hearts content!
Thats it for now guys, but we have a few more planned soon – one of them is a biggun! Muhaha!
Everyone has email. Some people access it via a blackberry, iphone/iphone 3g or other internet capable mobile phone, some people use outlook, thunderbird or one of the other desktop email clients. Then there are those of us who use things like gmail, hotmail so that you can access your mail easily anywhere in the world.
When i first started using the internet (over ten years ago) i used things like claramail and hotmail – just because they were free and easy to use. I then started actually messing about with the internet, building websites and learning about domain names and pop3 etc. I then took the logical step (at the time) to outlook. I had also started an IT job and needed something more professional that came with calendar sharing options.
Outlook was good, i had folders and filters set up so that when mail came in it was delivered to the right box and i even had a good spam filter called ihatespam. It seemed to work pretty well at the time from what i can remember.
I soon grew tired of outlooks limitations, i wanted my mail with me all the time! So i got someone to invite me to gmail – I quickly registered my usual username@ gmail address. I was quite lucky as it was early gmail days so i managed to get the address i wanted.
I loved gmails interface straight away. They had a totally different approach to how you store your mail, plus you use a google search to find your mail, so looking for things deep and buried (which i often do) became a sinch! I simply forwarded @maxxd email addresses to @gmail then set the @gmail “reply to” address to the @maxxd domain and you have a loop. It worked well until my server was down as it broke the forwarder, but i suppose thats true for most peoples email.
I used gmail for many years, and ended up with about 10 different addresses for different things, when i suddenly hit a wall when looking for some old emails that i needed to clear a burning question i had in the back of my head. My emails didn’t quite go far back enough, it was literally a few days out. So i looked at ways of extracting my emails from the mail files i had hung on to from the early days.
I soon located a copy of outlook, set it up then replaced the mail files and hey presto, i had my mail. I had got it into my head that it would be a good idea to copy all that across to thunderbird, and pull all my gmail emails from gmail down to thunderbird too, so i have everything in one place.
All was good for a while, apart from maxing out my hard drive and having to move the local thunderbird mailfile located. Oh and then, my laptop died. And i was without every single email i had ever received (and kept).
Bollocks.
I quickly switched email forwarders back on to how i had them set up when i used gmail previously, in order to catch any new mail i received, and i continued to use it like this while i sorted a new charger unit for my laptop. Once that was sorted i powered the laptop back up and started researching the best way to actually store all this info and have reliable professional email system.
We decided to go back to google, and try out google apps. We made the changes to the dns so that the domain emails go to googles servers, set the accounts up and cracked on with it. It seems to work really well, and its customisable. The only problem i find is when i need to log in from a random pc i have to piss about as i haven’t set the custom url thingy up yet – but that’s just my fault.
As i wanted all my emails in one place, i looked to find a way to get emails from thunderbird BACK to gmail! I located a really helpful set of guides here and here that enlightened me on the best way to do this successfully. It works well, but WARNING – DO NOT log in to another gmail account in your browser on that pc until the copy process has completed. I couldn’t figure out why it kept failing at first but it soon dawned on me. Also dont forget gmail has restrictions on attachment sizes so that can always be a reason if it keeps crashing or failing.
Anyway, im pretty much in the last stages of moving the emails back, im on over 11,000 in one and over 2000 in the other, with emails dating back to 2002.
The next step is to do some work on the servers to spruce them up a bit. Great stuff.
Gemma and I have recently come back from what was probably the most chilled out holiday we have ever been on.
We booked a holiday a month or so ago as we came into a tiny bit of cash and decided the best way to spend it was on a week somewhere hot! So we ventured into town (after an unsuccessful hunt on the net the night before) and walked in to a few travel agents, who scoured their 1970’s style computer systems trying to find us something that was within our budget and somewhere HOT! 🙂
A few places sprung up, but all slightly over budget! Boo! Then in the Thomson shop a nice lady found us a holiday that was a bit too expencive, but she said the hotels had a brilliant reputation and that it would be worth spending the extra few pounds!
The hotel was called the Riu Belylaya and it was plonked right on the beach in Torremolinos, Spain. We checked the weather reports daily as we were more bothered about it being hot than anything else! The weather looked ok, kinda, better than britain anyway – so we packed our things and headed to the airport.
Our thomson flight was kinda average, not much legroom, a baby crying somewhere and plenty of turbulence. And we arrived quite late at night to a flooded dark spain. Oh dear! The rep said that they had received record rain fall and that cars had been washed down some streets. 🙁
We got on our bus to the hotel, and were told we would be the first drop off from the airport! Alright!! We arrived, and gemma, myself and a few old couples got off the bus and got our luggage. Wow. What a hotel!
I have always stayed in nice hotels when i have gone away, but this one was really nice! We were greeted by very friendly multi lingual receptionists who offered us champagne or orange juice on arrival (i bet you can guess what gemma chose 😉 ) and quickly located us and booked us into room 715. We took the lift, walked along the corridor and entered our large double room.
It was a beaut, nice (fairly small) bathroom with bath, shower, sink, toilet and bidet! We had two single beds pushed together, but on them they made a really nice display of two swans kissing out of bath towels – we had told them it was kinda a anniversary holiday you see 😉
When we booked we were told we would have limited sea view. I think they say limited to cover their backs as one or two rooms don’t have a view, but ours was awesome! Although it wasn’t until morning that we actually saw how awesome our view was!.
Our View!
The next day was a bit grotty, the weather was picking up after being very rainy, but it did seem to be getting better, and it was still hot enough to sit on the beach and make sand castles!
From here on, the weather just got better and better, a few of the days were in fact scorchio! We spent one of these days on the beach all day – i got a tad burnt unfortunatly!
The hotel itsself continued to go from strength to strength too, the food was really nice, the staff were all wonderful and the rest of the hotels occupants were old people on a bowls holiday so we got 2 pools, a gym and all the sun loungers to ourself too! It was – at times – like we had the place to ourselves!
The only downside to the hotel (in my opinion) is the lack of english TV channels! I know that we shouldnt be in wathcing TV on holiday but it was nice to put it on when we were waiting for our fat bellies to go down after eatinc 6 course dinners haha.
Mountains!
Gemma was very brave a few days into the holiday, she actually ventured into the sea! Well done gemma!!
We were both playing in the sea that day, but we both chickened out after we found a dead jellyfish washed up on the beach! We really didnt do much else apart from ate, slept and sunbathed. I went swimming quite a bit, and went in the gym ONCE. Oh, and gemma had a massage as they had a treatments room next to the indoor pool.
All in all, it was an awesome holiday and i would reccomend the hotel to anyone!
The weather in spain in november was a lot better than we thought it would be, we had expected drizzle and been blessed with scorching sunshine!
The Riu Belplaya has to be one of the best hotels in torremolinos, if not in the whole of spain!
